His Return

Chapter 2: The Drop

Note: The Fall to Tartarus in this book is very heavily influenced by the book House of Hades, tweaked into Percy's perspective.

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Story: His Return
Chapter 2: The Drop

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How long had he been falling?

Had it been hours? Minutes? Days?

To Percy, it felt like an eternity.

His heart pounded out of his chest as he fell, the smell of death and rotting corpses filling the already hot, disgusting air of the pit, poisoning his lungs.

The wind tore through his skin like minuscule razors, his eyes remaining shut the entire time as he plummeted to his almost certain demise.

It almost felt unreal. For the 2nd time in one year, he would find himself plummeting to death's domain. This time was different, however. This time there was no one with him. No one hold when it all became too real. No flesh to touch to remind him that he was alive. He was alone.

His throat felt tight. Even in this moment, he couldn't help but wrestle with his emotions, even if it was the least important thing right now.

All his love. All of his years.

All for nothing.

They didn't want him anymore. They didn't need him, so he was cast aside like a broken toy.

He wanted to hate them, but even still he couldn't find it within him.

Wind whistled in Percy's ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if he were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon.

Percy wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to sob. He'd never expected his life to be easy; not since he was a little kid, but this was above his wildest imaginations. Most demigods died young at the hands of terrible monsters. That was the way it had been since ancient times. The Greeks invented tragedy. He knew the greatest heroes didn’t get happy endings.

Still, this was nothing less than unjust. Cruel would be a vast understatement.

He tried desperately to think of a plan to save himself. He was a son of Poseidon. One of the big three. Surely, there was something that he could do that might spare his life.

He wasn't a son of Zeus like Jason, so flying wasn't an option. He thought of how helpful it would be to have Frank's abilities to turn into a winged animal. That didn't do him much good as it was impossible.

He was seriously wondering whether he could fashion a parachute out of his clothes—that’s how desperate he was—when something about his
surroundings changed. The darkness took on a gray-red tinge. He realized that he could see his  arms now, the flesh red with dried blood from his wounds. The whistling in his ears turned into
more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute he'd been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below him, Percy could see the bottom. For a moment he was too stunned to think properly.

Slowly, the memories that he had tried so hard to forget began to resurface. He began to remember just how big the pit was. The entire island of Manhattan could have easily fit inside this cavern—and he couldn’t even see its full extent.

Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape was just as daunting as he had recalled, filled with rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To Percy’s left, the ground dropped off in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps
leading deeper into the abyss.
The stench of sulfur made it hard to concentrate, but he focused on the ground directly below him and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid—a river.

He remembered it all too well.

This wasn't any ordinary river.

This was the river of Misery, its primary goal being to discourage its victims, draining all thoughts of their life's purpose from their minds.

But he didn't have an option. He could either try to control the river, or he could die.

For some reason, making the decision was more difficult than he had thought it to be.

What would be the point in fighting for his life in a place like this, where this time, there was absolutely no chance that he may be able to return to the topside.

Even if Percy somehow managed to escape on his own, which was highly unlikely, the gods would just hunt him down and keep him prisoner. So what was the point.

Luckily, Percy's body made a decision before his brain could.

The river hurtled towards him. At the last second, Percy yelled defiantly, outstretching an arm to the river. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed him whole.

***

The impact didn't kill him, but the cold nearly did.

Freezing water shocked the air right out of his lungs. His limbs turned rigid as he began to sink.

Familiar wailing sounds filled his ears—millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of
distilled sadness.

The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed him down and made him numb.

What’s the point of struggling?  they told him. You’re dead anyway. You’ll never leave this place.

He could sink to the bottom and drown, let the river carry his body away.

That would be easier. He could just close his eyes.

Just then something gripped his hand and jolted him back to reality. Percy was confused. There was no one near him. There were no humans in the pit. What could have possibly done that.

Steam started rising from the water, which contradicted the river's freezing temperature.

What Percy realized however, was that this was no ordinary steam. The mist formed into faces, changing every few seconds. If he focused hard enough, he could almost make out a few of them.

His mother was one of them.

She was smiling it him sweetly, just as she always had.

"You are everything that is good in this world. My beautiful baby boy." Sally's voice reverberated around him as she held a finger out for his tiny infant hands to hold.

This was a memory of when he was a baby.

A tear came to his eye, but the water washed it away just as quickly.

The imagine switched. This time it was something that he could remember more clearly. It was the weekend before Sally had sent him off to Yancy Academy.

"I know that life isn't easy for you, sweetheart." She said, her tone as loving and motherly as ever. "But we have to be strong and fight. Even if I'm not there with you physically, I'm always there in your heart and in your mind."

A few months later, Percy would find out that he was a demigod, and his life would be completely changed forever.

That awoke something within Percy.

Suddenly he didn’t want to die. He kicked upward and broke the surface.

Percy gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulfurous. The water swirled around him, and suddenly he realized that he had created whirlpool to buoy himself up.

Though he couldn’t make out his surroundings, she knew this was a was positive that there was a shore near. He could feel the where the water was weaker in the current power.

He focused, willing the water to push him sideways where the strength of the water was lower.

Percy was near dead with exhaustion. Usually water reinvigorated him, but he knew that this was no ordinary river.